Well, it does seem meant to appeal to Homer Simpson

[seriousfic]

So, uh, DC comics just said that they'll be catering to males 18-34. Out loud.

Since I'm sure most people will be focusing (rightfully) on the male angle, let me take a moment to call bullshit on "18-34" too. If Barry Allen is the Flash, than most of their supposed target audience couldn't read before Wally West was the Flash. Likewise with an unmarried Lois and Clark.

Also, I'm pretty sure that demographic wasn't born when Barbara Gordon was actively in-costume as Batgirl. So...

Oh, and if you grew up watching Justice League Unlimited and now you're 18, so you want to read about John Stewart and Vic Sage, fuck you. Likewise with anyone who grew up with Stephanie Brown, Cass Cain, or the current incarnation of Young Justice/Teen Titans, since most of them are being completely rewritten (or have already had their personalities drastically altered by Geoff Johns).

Comments

[colonel-green.livejournal.com]

I agree with the OP on the stuff about the characters themselves, at least with certain characters (Wally West, most notably). But that doesn't have anything to do with the concept of focusing on expanding to reach more of your traditional audience.

The old ways of doing things are NOT WORKING, and the people who are in charge of this mess are RESPONSIBLE for the fact that it is a sea of inexcusable failure. These really aren't debatable points.

I don't think anyone would dispute that the current market setup doesn't work. But the current direct market setup predates Quesada and Didio by, what, 20+ years (10 years, maybe if you date it from the implosion of the speculator bubble), and that's what they're attempting to escape now. So they really aren't responsible for that.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Except that the current setup really isn't working for other media either, because by continuing to limit yourself to the conventional wisdom that you should focus primarily on 18-34 men, all you're going to do is compete for an ever-shrinking share of the market and repeating a whole bunch of already-made mistakes in the process. That sort of self-perpetuating thinking is what leads idiots to say that movies with female leads don't sell. I am saying that the current status quo for ALL media is INTOLERABLY unacceptable, which is why entertainment media needs to stop ghettoizing itself by focusing on an age-and-gender demographic that has demonstrated itself to be a) the LEAST loyal to brands, and b) the MOST no-growth segment of the market. The fact that Quesada and DiDio inherited many of these problems does not excuse the fact that, at best, they've responded with well-intentioned but utterly uninformed ineptitude, and at worst, they've actively and knowingly perpetuated several aspects of the current market that they themselves MUST know are driving away potential customers. FUCK giving them a pass. If it's too fucking hard for them to fix these problems, they need to quit the industry and let people with original ideas have a go, rather than just wallowing in their masturbatory nostalgia. They deserve ZERO pity.

[colonel-green.livejournal.com]

Except that the current setup really isn't working for other media either

They seem to be doing okay on the whole, though with the usual technology concerns.

I'm not clear on how the 18-34 male market is "ever-shrinking" (and if it was, the 18-34 female market would likewise be).